INSEAD MBA News

Leading international business school INSEAD this week appointed Professor Ilian Mihov as its official dean. Mihov, who is currently interim dean of the school, will be INSEAD’s first dean to be based in Asia, though he will travel frequently between INSEAD’s three campuses in Fontainebleau, France; Singapore and Abu Dhabi to engage the school’s entire global community. A newly appointed deputy dean and full academic and administrative team will ensure that INSEAD’s presence in Europe – its home for the past 53 years – will remain strong. “We are fortunate that our predecessors foresaw the rise of globalization and established a school destined to be the pioneer in the internationalization of business and education,” Mihov said in a statement. He pledged in his new role to uphold the values of the school’s founders, nurture its intellectual environment, support innovation in teaching and increase the school’s reputation. Read more

Entrepreneurship, innovation and cost cutting are increasingly important amid shifts in global healthcare systems, presenting important opportunities for business schools offering healthcare-focused MBA programs, the Financial Times reports. “The healthcare system is about much more than just treating patients,” Steve Chick, head of INSEAD’s Healthcare Management Initiative, told the FT. “The coordination of care is critical and that’s where business schools can play a big role.” Read more

~ A CLEAR ADMIT EXCLUSIVE ~ American-born Mary Carey stepped into her current role as director of the INSEAD Career Development Center in September 2012, but she was not new to INSEAD nor to France. Before last year, she was executive director of INSEAD’s Global Leadership Center, and before that she worked in career development at another leading European business school, HEC. She began her professional career in southern California, working as a CPA with KPMG as well as in financial services before heading back to school to study leadership development and career development. When she had the opportunity to come over to France, she jumped at it because she wanted the international experience. “It really opens your eyes to the world,” she says. That was seven years ago, and she’s still there. Read more

The Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), which owns and administers the GMAT exam, has commissioned a new book examining challenges confronting graduate management education, from technological advancements and globalization to how to measure program quality other than through rankings. Disrupt or Be Disrupted: A Blueprint for Change in Management Education, out this month, contains contributions from leading academics and thinkers such as Harvard Business School Professor Rakesh Khurana and Former INSEAD Dean Dipak Jain on how to reimagine curriculum content and delivery, student engagement, faculty development and more. Read more

INSEAD, with campuses in France and Singapore, boasted a global MBA program well before many other top business schools began to establish satellites for their programs in regions around the world. Having now added a new Abu Dhabi module to its core MBA program, INSEAD is expanding its international reach even farther. The Abu Dhabi location got its start as a research center in 2007 and grew into a full-fledged campus in 2010, offering executive education and executive MBA programs. As part of the new module rolled out this year, students can now spend a week in January, a week in February and a concluding weekend in March as part of the core MBA program, enjoying lectures, guest speakers, field trips to and group projects with local companies, alumni networking and visits to recruiters. Read more

A new Masters of Finance degree program and a new Singapore section of the INSEAD Global executive MBA program are among the developments Peter Zemsky chooses to call out in the interview that follows. Zemsky, a professor of strategy with a focus on competitive strategy, industry evolution, value innovation and action learning, is the acting dean and dean of the degree programs and curriculum at INSEAD. He also teaches the core competitive strategy course in the MBA and eMBA program. Zemsky doesn’t waste words in his answers to our questions. Read on for his concise, practical tips on how to make your application to INSEAD stand out. Read more